3d printing

The Village Crone is a new worker placement game for 1-6 players where you become a witch and use your spells on the villagers and fight over the title of the Village Crone. The game includes tokens for familiars and villagers, and it looks like you can replace those tokens with nice 3D miniatures if you have access to a 3D printer!

The folks over at The Game Aisle posted a short article about the implications of cheap 3D printing and how it could be both good and bad for the game industry. On the positive side you have the ability to make more complex prototype pieces, replace pieces that may have been lost or broken, or even create your own pieces for your favorite game (hmm, I could replace the robber in Catan with that dog from Duck Hunt). However, with these positives come some negatives. Cheap 3D printing gives people the ability to print out knock-off pieces or even bootleg entire games such as a boat version of Rush Hour. While they make the dubious decision to actually link to the bootleg download, the article is worth a read and does conjure comparisons to what is happening in the movie and music industries with bootlegging.